Chapter Text
Lyrics from this is me trying - Taylor Swift (Folklore)
Stars littered the night sky.
Glittering like diamonds. Shining, putting on a show, for anyone brave enough to look up.
It was said that when you looked up to the stars, you looked up to your family that had since passed.
Loki wished badly that it was true.
He needed guidance.
He wanted to ask his Mother to show him the way. Loki was on a ship headed to Midgard with his brother Thor and his brother's subjects, the Asgardians.
After Ragnarok, and Asgard succumbed to Surtur and his fiery helscape, the Asgardian people had been drifting for months, not knowing when they would reach Midgard.
The journey was taking a toll on everyone.
Loki had never known his brother to be serious before. He had always approached his problems with his hammer and a never-ending jest. But now, Thor had dark circles under his eyes, hadn’t eaten nor slept for days, and was trying his hardest to make sure everyone else was comfortable.
Seems that the amount of joy he holds is equivalent to the length of his hair.
Loki is startled out of his thoughts by footsteps. He needs not to turn around to know it is his brother.
“Thor.”
“Loki.” The newly proclaimed, King of Asgard, stood side by side with the God of Mischief. “I have come to inform you that we are in the orbit of Earth. Banner has gone ahead and informed the Midgardians that we will be arriving and need a safe place to land.”
He raised his eyebrows but showed no other signs of having heard the information.
Thor watched him for a minute before sighing and placing his hand on Loki’s shoulder. “Brother, I understand you are nervous; you have had the misfortune of having committed heinous crimes but fear not! I am sure that with time the others will forgive you.”
Loki stiffened.
His brother had meant the words to be comforting but all Loki could see was blue.
And Thanos.
Influencing his decisions.
He could hear his own neck—
Loki turned to Thor and spoke with a confidence that wasn’t nearly as strong as he wanted, “I am not worried.”
“Loki, I know you better than almost anyone else,”
Anyone else living that is.
“And I know when you are lying,” Loki frowned, “most times.” His brother cleared his throat and a quick glare to the hand still resting on his shoulders, caused him to step back.
“I appreciate your concern, Thor. But I am fine, I have done questionable things, I’ll admit, but I won’t be spending time with the other ‘Avengers’.” Loki was planning on hiding out wherever New Asgard was set up.
‘Norway, maybe.’ He mused.
“The point is, you needn’t worry, dear brother, for I am perfectly content.” Thor’s face suggested otherwise but he let it go, for now.
That’s all he could ask for.
That’s all he could handle.
Tony Stark was not a man easily taken off guard.
Being kidnapped, a piece of cake.
Finding out his longtime business partner was psychopathic, get rid of him.
Aliens led by a lunatic Mischief God, sure.
Having to send a nuke into a wormhole and seeing your life flash before your eyes— okay, maybe that one was a tad more traumatic than he thought.
The point was that Anthony Edward Stark was just that, a Stark.
And Stark men are made of Iron.
His oh-so-wonderful father repeated that same phrase over and over and over again, every time he could pull himself out of his work long enough to remember he had a child.
Tony wasn’t shaken easily, but saving the world multiple times could shake anyone. Tony liked to think that he handled stressful situations in a good way.
Cold.
A shield slamming down.
Being left to—
No matter how he felt inside, he tried to be sarcastic and witty to anyone else watching.
(People were always watching)
The only people to have had the unfortunate circumstance of looking behind the mask were Rhodey, Happy, and Pepper Potts, the love of his life.
Safe to say that when Tony had received a call from an employee at the Avengers Compound, that an unidentifiable air(space)craft was trying to land on the pristine lawn. He assumed it would result in another normal, run of the mill, Tuesday.
Not whatever this was.
“Mr. Stark,” one of the employees, Mark, whatever was leading him to the room where the transmission came through, “we tried to decipher it, but the writing is unlike anything I’ve ever seen and—”
“Hold it,” Tony stepped through the door and all conversation halted as always when he entered a room, “what’s this I hear about an uncrackable code, seem’s right up my alley.”
“Mr. Stark, thank you for coming on such short notice, I’m Dr. Harold Stinkins, and we just need you to take a look at the encrypted message we received up to an hour or two ago.”
“You know, I know someone named Harold, I like him.” Dr. Stinkins face visibly wilted, but Tony ignored him in favor of sitting down.
He quickly scanned the code and jolted back when he saw the very noticeable message.
“Get the landing pad prepared.”
“Mr. Stark—”
“Now!”
One of the interns hurried off to inform the landing staff while the rest of the scientists watched Tony with poorly hidden curiosity.
Usually, Tony would be more concerned about random people seeing his breakdowns but right now he couldn’t be bothered. The code was encrypted with the Asgardian language. Sometime after The Battle Of New York and before Sokovia, during their Hydra raids to get the scepter back, Thor gave each of the Avengers their own phrase in his language. Tony’s was Man of Iron, and hilariously Thor had used Capsicle for… the point was that Tony was looking at a message encrypted with Hulk Out and Pointbreak written out in Asgardian, something only the original Avengers knew.
Bruce was alive.
After Sokovia and the Bird disappeared, Tony tried his damn hardest to look for any information on Bruce’s whereabouts. All searches came up negative. Nat had tried to act like the information hadn’t phased her, but Tony knew her too well. Nat and Bruce had a complicated relationship and Tony was sure there was something deeper than just close friends, but he had never pushed.
Now, he didn’t know what to do.
Scratch that, he knew exactly what to do.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out an old burner phone. Something he wouldn’t have been caught dead with less than a year ago, but nowadays he always had the phone somewhere on his person, and if not, then near enough to grab. He didn’t fully know why, but for some reason knowing the phone was in arms reach calmed him. Probably had to do with some psychology bullshit he couldn’t be bothered to research.
He flipped the top up and went to the only contact on the phone.
SR.
Tony took a deep breath and typed out a message. He sent it a second later, debating if he should do it (Natasha, at least, deserved to know).
Tony snapped the phone in half, startling the remaining scientists.
He sighed. This was going to be a logistical nightmare.
TS: Code Green.